Yes at that price it is good to take note and be prudent. There are a lot of incentives to fake LBZ because of its high price. There are a few mountain that has some ( but not all) of the LBZ different taste profile and they can be blended to simulate LBZ. I can think of a few mountains, but it is good not to mention it publicly.

Day 2 of the 2005 YiWu from TMTR. The ability of teas like this to provide me enjoyment through many infusions is why I have enough puerh to last me something close to forever. Also nice is the contrast between my Yi Yong Cheol celadon lotus kyusu and the Eiichi commission Mojave yunomi--smooth vs rustic--while this tea started out a little rough and moved to smooth late infusions.

Had a tea session in the morning. Highlight: Youle 2012. Aromatic and sweet tea. Going for another tea session to meet a young Teamaster. This guy drank tea since teenage and now in late 30s. He has a impressive collection of old teapots. At night another session with a group of very old tea drinkers most have decades of tea experience.... Will drink until wee hours in the morning. This is the typical schedule when I travel to meet tea friends. Huff and puff.

cant believe i personally paid $185 for each of the tea cakes on the left/centre in 2003.

first cake on the left was clean, dry storage, exposed to clean air for decades. verdict? Destroyed! very little volatiles left, gives a nice reddish but tasteless, odourless brew.

cake in the centre? mildly humid storage, tasted horrible, mildly metallic. but thanks to Teaism's input on tea baking.. i modified one of my home made incense burners into an electric tea roaster/baker. After baking some of the tea.. the "off notes" disappeared and the brew was actually quite nice!

Hey, Kyarazen, can you tell us a story of how you got those puerh? From my understanding, you were cheated pretty big time even for getting a well stored GYG. All of the best '90s teas came in well under $185 in 2003, especially since puerh barely started really rising in price ~2000, and only took off about late 2003-2004. And I'm pretty sure you could buy some of the best '80s tea for the $370 you spent, if you haggled, and, most certainly, you could have bought quality '80s tea of some stripe, from big factories making proper puerh, for $185 in 2003. Of course, Captain Hindsight has hindsight, but I still bet the story of what it was like to buy puerh in 2003 is interesting!

shah82 wrote:Hey, Kyarazen, can you tell us a story of how you got those puerh? From my understanding, you were cheated pretty big time even for getting a well stored GYG. All of the best '90s teas came in well under $185 in 2003, especially since puerh barely started really rising in price ~2000, and only took off about late 2003-2004. And I'm pretty sure you could buy some of the best '80s tea for the $370 you spent, if you haggled, and, most certainly, you could have bought quality '80s tea of some stripe, from big factories making proper puerh, for $185 in 2003. Of course, Captain Hindsight has hindsight, but I still bet the story of what it was like to buy puerh in 2003 is interesting!

haha! rubbing salt in an open wound!

i started collecting sheng pu-erh around end of '02 and had stopped in early '04, unfortunately unguided without a teacher. the only people with information in the culturally devoid singapore then, were the merchants themselves.

there is a single "merchant" in chinatown whom was the largest importer and stockist of GYGB in singapore for the past half a century, their inventory was impressive, or at least they tried to make it look that way (maybe by emptying their warehouse and piling them in the storefront?!), GYGB was up to the ceiling, tongs and tongs of them everywhere.

The family patriarch just passed away a while back, and the son had just taken over the business. Stories on the tea's rarity, them being the most authoritative stockists, how his father had kept these teas for decades and all that. being young and naive, i was taken in by all these fanciful stories and made a purchase. inelastic supply, the price was their call. thinking that the two cakes were really something good, I hoarded them and did not brew them as i did not want to destroy the form.

in '09 or maybe later than that, i got to know from a tea master that the moment the patriarch of the GYGB merchant passed away, many local collectors had swarmed the shop and swept everything good. By the time I made my way to the shop in '03 then, it was past the prime and whatever that was leftover, were the not so "sellable" junk, that needed stories to sell, and they piled whatever they had left in the shopfront just to impress.

the cakes were authentic, i had cross referenced chinese/taiwanese literatures and even inquired with tea merchants in taiwan. but authenticity is not the only issue eventually. taste is the strongest deciding factor, a realisation that came a little too late. in 2012, a taiwanese author wrote a book and criticized many people in the world, 听故事，看票买茶 (listening to stories, buying tea by the label). i was a victim of that.

the cake on the left was from the late 80s, the centre, from early 80s. one was salvageable, the other wasnt. it seems that a possible factor in whether a pu-er will "age" well to become drinkable is not only decided by the storage condition but also a critical step/process in the manufacturing.

TIM wrote:Hey, Kyarazen. What kind of water are you brewing them with?

just regular filtered water. you can ignore that evian bottle in the background, it was for another experiment... i wanted to see how the taste of some mineral waters change as they are boiled.. and evian was crap! the longer it was boiled.. the more horrible it became.. with a nice white precipitate

TIM wrote:Hey, Kyarazen. What kind of water are you brewing them with?

just regular filtered water. you can ignore that evian bottle in the background, it was for another experiment... i wanted to see how the taste of some mineral waters change as they are boiled.. and evian was crap! the longer it was boiled.. the more horrible it became.. with a nice white precipitate

wert wrote:I see a magnetic funnel...

more experiments with tea voodoo...

You should share the info on the incense to tea conversion details. I think I would try something like that also. That is a great and ingenious idea that you had for that!

just one of my home made pure mica/pure mechanically jointed incense heater which instead of using a mica sheet to heat fragrant wood/incense i just put a saucer on and pump the heat up. currently using it around 55 watts-60 watts for roasting tea..

it does get a little toasty though.. but quite fun trying to "bake" the tea with your fingers like a miniature version of what they do in factories when they finalize the baking of teas.